Sacred Space
Photo by Brandon Morgan
For this Fusatsu (Renewal of Vows ceremony) Zuisei speaks of sacred space as the ground in which atonement and vow become possible. It is, to borrow Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, “A sanctuary in time”—a place and period which is both distinct from and equal to the everyday. A space full of possibility.
Correction: The opening quote, attributed to Charles Chu, is actually by Margaret Gibson.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Sacred Space
Faced with so much that it's impossible to understand, standing right at the edge of the mortality of everything we know and are and may come to be, what else can we do but create?
Make something.
Make it with love and clarity.
Make it out of desperation that turns into tenderness.
Make it out of the deepest part of ourselves, present everywhere and nowhere.
Tonight, I want to speak about the ground, or rather the frame upon which this renewal of our ceremony, Fusatsu, takes place. I wanted to take a step back, in a sense, to widen the lens, and look at the space, the sacred space that makes this ceremony possible.
I don't mean so much the physical space of this Zendo, although I don't exclude it either, but the space that allows for the generation, for the creation of a reality in which atonement and the invocation of the names of Buddha and the renewal of our Bodhisattva vows becomes possible.
It is the space at the edge of the mortality of everything, as the late painter Charles Chu said. Although it sounds a little bit dramatic, I think it is very true. We would call it the edge of impermanence. That is the space in which we constantly create.
Chu is saying, well, if we're going to do that, let's make it with love and with clarity. If we have to make it out of desperation or fear, that becomes tenderness.
Those of you who were at our Beyond Fear of Differences meeting this afternoon know that we very much created such a space out of our collective sincerity and our desire to meet one another in a real way. To me, this is the space in which the ordinary, the everyday, is revealed as sacred. You could say it's revealed in its true form, which is holy from the word whole. Whole.
To speak about sacred space, I think first we have to say that it is, in one sense, differentiated. The only way we can speak of a space as sacred is by comparing it to a space that is not. It is also a space that is dynamic because it is in relationship to everything else. It is not an absence, waiting to be waiting for a presence. It is not a void needing to be filled. It is a space that is in relationship to itself, to those who occupy it, and to every other space around it.
In other words, a sacred space does not become sacred inherently or abstractly. Every element of that space, from its location to each of the objects in it, every action, every gesture that happens within it, helps to create that very sacredness.
Thresholds and the Creation of Sacredness
A sacred space also has a threshold, the passage through which we move from the ordinary to the sacred, which is really just one way of speaking about it. Is there really a passage? But as we cross the threshold to the Zendo every day, a couple of times a day at least, we intend to leave our preoccupations behind. That is what we want to practice.
This is why we stop and we bow before entering. This is why we each enter very deliberately at the beginning of Ango, while we stand at that threshold and we gather our minds and we offer incense and we invoke our intent for those three months as our name is read and we take our place among the Sangha. We're saying, I am here. I am aware, and I am preparing my body and mind to do something different than what I did before. I am turning toward what is whole because that is the reality I wish to live in.
Someone sent me a photo of a pilgrimage site, a sacred mountain, really, in Sri Lanka, called Sri Para, which means sacred foot. It has a rock formation on its top that has a deep indentation in the shape of a foot. In Buddhism, it is thought to be the footprint of the Buddha. Christians and Muslims believe it's the footprint of Adam, and Hindus the footprint of Shiva. Pilgrims from all over the world travel to it, and you're supposed to reach it at sunrise by walking barefoot over 5,500 steps, stone steps.
At the top is a sign. The photograph that I had, the sign was in English, and it said, "Be Silence. Be Silence and let that silence create through you." The thing about sacred space is that it's not just a physical location in space, but it's also a location in time.
I was talking to a resident about Shabbat. Thank you. I was talking to a resident about Shabbat in Judaism, and they were telling me there's a well-known author and rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and he speaks of the observance of this day, as this day of rest, as the creation of a sanctuary in time. I love that.
If Christianity has its cathedrals, which are a spatial acknowledgment of sacredness of the divine, Shabbat is a cathedral in time. A space in time distinct from the everyday, in which work is interrupted. In your attention, your body, your mind is turned toward observance, toward family.
I thought of Zuisei, and I thought of liturgy, which is not exactly different from the everyday, but it's also not quite it either. We can make it every day with a lack of awareness, a lack of intent. Yet even then, I would say that because of what the container is, that it creates both Zuisei and liturgy, it's not every day.
Living the Ceremony and Its Vows
This evening, we have set aside time to stop and reflect and renew, acknowledging that something becomes possible when we make room for that reflection and atonement and observance and reverence, that something is created that did not exist before. That is the power of our minds.
Every element comes together within that differentiated time and space, contributing to the creation of a very particular reality. We essentially have invited all the, in this case, ten manifestations of Buddha into this room. We are once again, as we do every day, very directly and together, saying, these are the vows, these are the ways in which I want to live my life, I want to conduct my life, I don't want to forget this, let me say this again in front of the Buddha.
Everything from the Zabutons, the instruments, our vows, the language, the chants that we do, are creating that language of sacredness. That is why we say, you know, don't just plop the Zafus on the Zabutons, don't adjust the Zabuton with your feet. Take care, be reverent, take care of them as you would of your own body.
We could chant the names of the Buddha while we're doing the laundry. We could recite the four vows as we're in the car heading off to work, and it would be good, and it would be powerful. But what happens when we do it here, like this, facing the altar with the Buddha and Prasanna Paramita and Kuan Yin flanked by Mahabharajapati? What happens when we do it after having atoned for the harm that we've caused, willfully or not, through our actions, our words, our thoughts? What about our posture? What about that sacred space that is our body?
As we chant, we're kneeling, hands in gassho. We are that vulnerable, that open. To that subtle communication that takes place when we orient, when we turn toward wholeness. "All evil karma I ever committed by me since of old," we say. It is old, it is beginningless, as the second line says. It is both personal and universal. It is the stream of the mind, that we swim in, all of us, that we have always swum in. But it's not our fault, this evil karma. Yet, we are responsible. We are forgiven.
Let's not miss what we are creating here together from that deepest, that truest part of ourselves.
Kattagiri Roshi said, in the relative, we are always responsible. In the absolute, we are always forgiven. But how is that? How does atoning in the sacred space change the stream of our karma? Does it change it? Being forgiven, how do we take the next step, the next action, speak the next word? As we were saying this afternoon, how do we own and not blame? How do we atone for, not brush aside?
Any ritual that acknowledges sacredness is a manifest wish to live within reality. Not because the world, the everyday world, is not reality, but because we forget that it is. We cover it up with our confusion and our pain. Tonight we're saying, for this brief time, I will abide in reality. I will renew my vows, reminding myself of how I want to live my life. As we do this, this hall witnesses our aspiration, our commitment, our practice. Everything in this space vows with us.
When Daido Roshi died, I was the liturgist for part of the funeral services. In one of the dedications, we say the lines, we said, the lines, "May his vows be fully realized, and may we realize the Buddha way together." I remember, it stayed with me, and I remember thinking, but he's dead. How are his vows going to be realized? As I brought that question to Shugun Roshi, I saw for an instant that Roshi's vows didn't need his physical presence to be realized. They weren't about him, although they didn't exclude him either. Just as they were when he was alive, they were dynamic, they were not static.
In our asking that those vows be fully realized, we were saying, they continue those vows. They need to continue to develop. They must continue to develop. How? Through us. Through us. Through us. That is the responsibility.
I said, you know, that that sacred space is a differentiated space, essentially distinct from other spaces, but is that really so? Is the laundry room any less holy than the Zendo? Where is sacredness to be found ultimately? If we say there's no difference at all, then what is the point of doing ceremonies like this? If we say there's a difference, is it that we are bound by space and time? Is it that we're dependent on form, on a location, a set of gestures to let us know, this is important, this deserves our attention?
The Space We Create Together
Still, we're doing Fusatsu here in this very particular way. We're not doing it downstairs, we're not doing it in a mall. Maybe we should. That would be interesting to see what would happen if we did Fusatsu in a mall. But we don't, why don't we? What happens in this co-creation? Because anybody that has walked past the Zendo, an empty Zendo, has just walked by the hallway. If they're paying attention, they feel something, are arrested by something about this space.
What is it? That deepest part of ourselves, present everywhere and nowhere, that Chu speaks of, that is really what we are invoking tonight. Because ultimately, we live life through presence, not absence. We live it through connection, not separation. Liturgy like this centers us. It locates us in sacred space, in infinite time, so that through this point, right here, this body, that connection and that presence can move outward. It can go all the way back to the beginningless beginning, all the way forward to the endless end. Which is the only way that it can move, it's the only way that it abides.
Please do not think that we were doing something ordinary just now. That you will go to bed unmoved, unchanged, because this is like every other night of your life. But please don't think that it's anything special either. Let's not miss what we are creating here together from that deepest, that truest part of ourselves.
Thank you.
Good luck.
Sacred Space, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.